I Will Always Find You
by lilithtorch2
Summary: In a final effort to rescue the Winter Soldier from the clutches of Soviet Russia, Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow, is determined to go on one last mission. Mainly Bucky/Natasha, Winter Soldier/Black Widow, James/Natasha
1. The Assassin

The Winter Soldier was a tall imposing figure with long ashen hair that flowed backward from his head like devil's wings. His blank sapphire eyes seemed to sink into the dark circles of his eye sockets, and when combined with the snow-white color of his skin and his gaunt features, they formed the horrific image of an empty human skull. He was death personified, and his weapon of choice was the metallic arm, a structure as cold as the Winter Soldier's heart (if he even had one), hanging innocently from the Winter Soldier's left shoulder. He was a monstrosity known to the local civilians as The Assassin, an emotionless but violent machine who struck at unsuspecting victims under the cover of night, killing them instantly.

"Winter Soldier."

The man jerked his head in the direction of those words.

"Come here."

He immediately stood up to obey, and moved swiftly toward the direction of the person beckoning him. He found himself standing in the control room, where a video was playing on the monitors. He casually observed in the screens a redhead walking outside on the streets of New York City, and immediately took care to remember all of her features.

His handler pointed to the woman and simply said, "This is your mission."

No one ever needed to directly tell the Winter Soldier to assassinate her; after all, killing was his specialty. He surmised that the redhead was a traitor to their organization, and what did he do to all traitors? He killed every single one of them so that they could never breathe more secrets to the outside world. His handler gave him the woman's file, which included known aliases, known acquaintances, and places where she could be found. He scrutinized the documents carefully, examining her pictures.

Suddenly, a voice struck the Winter Soldier's mind, cracking his expressionless demeanor.

_I will always find you._

Hiding his shock, the Winter Soldier recalled a woman, a redhead just like this traitor, chasing after him, and almost every single time, something red white and blue would catch hold of her and he would escape. He remembers feeling something that he shouldn't be feeling. Is it called love? But love was something that was so out of character for a professional assassin like him. He realized that there were gaps in his memories, but that just before each one, there would be a dream of a red-haired mermaid princess dancing with him in a grand ballroom. Is he a prince?

No, he sharply admonishes himself.

He is The Beast.


	2. The Princess

_Hear my words, spider: your Soldier is alive._

When she listened to those words, holding her breath, Natasha Romanoff could no longer maintain the appearance of a levelheaded professional with a strong poker face. She thought she would be happy to finally hear this from someone, anyone really, but that was just the thing with always looking for people and hoping without seeing any actual results: you start to expect bad news every time anyone tells you they have news and you don't know what's real anymore. She almost slapped the other person. You're fucking with me. What do you think this is, some kind of sick April Fool's joke?

The informant only smiled patiently. _Darling, don't be so venomous. Why would I lie? I still owe you a debt for helping me escape from Russia._

This was true; the other person was not lying. Then there was only one thing Natasha needed to do: she needed to see the Winter Soldier with her own eyes. She took on additional work, choosing missions where she knew the Soviets and the Winter Soldier would be involved. In the past six months, she would return from each one bloodied, exhausted, and near death, but when the other concerned Avengers, especially Steve Rogers and Clint Barton, asked her if she was okay, she always nodded. She couldn't worry about her own recovery; she needed to keep looking. Whatever Natasha was feeling, she had never forgotten her promise to the Winter Soldier: she would always find him. She would always come back for him.

Unfortunately, without her knowledge, Steve Rogers had been selected by the other Avengers to be her de facto bodyguard and she was forced to let him accompany her on the latest mission, where they both managed to get close enough to the Winter Soldier. This was the first time she learned that Steve not only recognized the Winter Soldier, but her assassin was his fallen brother, Bucky Barnes. But she wasn't surprised when the Winter Soldier recognized neither of them and didn't react to Steve's name for him.

She wasn't surprised that he remembered nothing at all.


	3. The Chase

When the Winter Soldier sensed that he failed his mission and made his escape, Natasha immediately ditched Steve and chased after the assassin, breaking through any windows in her way. She vowed that she would not lose him this time. When they both found themselves on the top of a building, she called out to him to wait, not wanting to see him disappear from her again. Although he didn't recognize her voice, he turned around to walk closer to her, as if he was curious to see what she wanted. She fought him because there was no other way to communicate with him. When he almost killed her, Natasha was sure that she was going to die. Instead, she saw a flash of recognition cross his face, and he had fled from the memory of her. She didn't give up, and continued to chase after him, leaping off buildings as she did so.

But it was after this moment that Steve finally caught up to her, warning her that Nick Fury had arrived. It was too late to save their mutual friend. They would have to try again later.

"No," she fought Steve, "no, you can't say that!"

As she was held back by Steve, Natasha's eyes followed the trail of the Winter Soldier as he slipped away again. She wanted to feel _something_, but she couldn't. When Nick Fury gave her an earful about being so reckless, she didn't say anything. When Steve found a quiet moment to reassure her that they would save Bucky/the Winter Soldier next time, she didn't cry.

She simply didn't do anything.

Natasha only waited until she returned to the agency, where she found a quiet area in the building to let her frustration flow down from her dark eyes.

"Are you okay?"

Of course it's Clint Barton who asked her this; he always knew where to find her. She felt guilty for not telling him about the Winter Soldier, but besides Steve, she couldn't tell anyone. How can she do that when she doesn't know if the Winter Soldier will be dead or alive the next time she finds him? Besides, if she ends up dying for this, there's simply no point to explain anything. But Clint just looks at Natasha innocently, waiting for an answer. He's always so patient and understanding about the things she says and doesn't say, and she finally just rushes straight into his arms and breaks down into sobs.


	4. The Shot

When Steve discovered that he and Natasha had both known the Winter Soldier/Bucky Barnes at different points in time, he wanted to know more about the Winter Soldier that Natasha knew. So on one of their many trips to get him reacquainted with modern society, he took the opportunity to ask Natasha again about her connection to Bucky Barnes. She refused to discuss anything about this. How do you tell someone, "I was in a relationship with your best friend/brother who decided to push me away from his life, is currently brainwashed and repeatedly put in stasis by a bunch of Russians, and most likely doesn't remember either of us" without breaking down?

She remembered that her ex-superiors were tolerant of her relationship with the Winter Soldier but speculated how her ex-superiors discovered how she and the Winter Soldier were planning to leave the organization for good and start a new life elsewhere, perhaps in the United States. Natasha laughed sadly at this thought; she did end up in the United States, but where was her Winter Soldier? He was still stuck under the Soviets' control with no memory that he had ever wanted any life outside of all the killing. The Russians were using him as bait to lure her out, and she had willingly walked into them every single time, because as she saw it, there were only two options: find him or die trying. But the Soviets were so cruel; they were mocking her for having emotions! And now they wanted to indulge in the tragedy of having her own lover kill her at last and not care, because he would never know that he had his own fairy tale.

As Natasha reminded herself that focusing on the Winter Soldier backstory would only prolong the time it took for her to find him, she felt a shooting pain infecting her side and sank to the ground. Wincing, she touched her side. Blood. Crap; with her instincts and hearing, she should have heard that bullet coming toward her. Instead, she let her emotions control her and let her guard down.

"You all right, Nat?" Steve helped her get up. She ignored the injury as she moved; she would remove the bullet and clean the wound soon.

Meanwhile, she and Steve both looked in the direction the bullet was coming from and saw a shadow as it disappeared from high above a building.

"He's here," Natasha remarked calmly, despite being wounded.

"You mean Bucky?" Steve asked, glancing at her.

"I know him as the Winter Soldier," was all she could tell him. Even though Natasha had put on her best poker face, Steve could tell that there were many things left unsaid.


	5. The Struggle

After his failure to kill the traitor, the Winter Soldier returned into solitary confinement, the only world he had ever known. He was locked up and chained like a rabid dog. He didn't know where he was and couldn't tell the time or the day of the year. The only things that kept him alive were his missions. He focused all of his energy on succeeding, and if he failed any of them, he had to suffer the consequences.

And this time, he failed.

_Punch._

The Winter Soldier clenched his teeth. He couldn't show any expression; that's not what his superiors expected from him. They expected him to take on all kinds of pain and not care. It had been such a long time since his last failure; why did it need to happen now?

_If I could I would take all of your pain from you._

There it was again: another memory that was never his but why does he see it? There was a younger man who looked just like him proclaiming nonsense to a redheaded woman… Wait. A redheaded woman? She wasn't real. Why did she keep coming back for him?

His thoughts were interrupted by the hot burn of a fresh cigarette butt on his skin.

"You failed," the shadows told him.

_Punch._

He hid his resentment and heard them ask, "Do you know what we do to failures?"

_Leave her alone! She did nothing wrong; it was me. It was my fault._

As he ignored the soreness and pain in his body, the Winter Soldier thought of a time when he actually took the beatings for someone else's sake. It had to be a delusion, because he could never have done that. Who would the other person have been? There was no one here in this world but him; he was alone. Why did he have this memory? To distract himself, the Winter Soldier reflected on his last mission; that traitor's death should have been instant.

But something happened when he saw her through the scope. He blinked, not sure at what he had seen. He thought he recognized the red-haired princess from his dreams. At the time, he forced himself to kill her but his hands thought otherwise, so he missed her head and shot her at her side. Why? For the first time, he was inaccurate when he should have been skilled. It was unlike the Winter Soldier to be so bad at this. While the shadows continued to torture him, he realized that the redheaded princess from his dreams actually existed. But why?

His handler motioned for his tormentors to stop. "We will give you only one more chance," the man warned. "Use it wisely."

The Winter Soldier had been given another opportunity, but to do what? Find the woman again and ask her why she was real, or to succeed in his mission this time?

He did not know.


	6. The Elephant in the Room

As Steve and Natasha rushed to one of Natasha's safe houses nearby, while making sure they weren't being followed, Steve insisted on calling Clint. He admitted that he still had no idea what was going on between Natasha and Clint (he emphasized the word "complicated" for good measure). Whatever it was, they needed to have a talk about what she'd been doing in the last six what Natasha might be feeling (she emphasized the word "nothing"), Clint clearly cared for her and he deserved to know what was going on.

Natasha made sure to lace the words, "worst," "idea" and "ever" with as much disapproval as she could muster. She protested that Clint would needlessly fuss over a minor wound.

Steve gave her a frown that suggested he did not want to take bullshit from her today. He thought that she had been reckless in the last six months, or "do you need to be reminded exactly _why_ I became your de facto bodyguard in the first place?"

Natasha muttered something about how Steve didn't protect her from the bullet, but he just retorted that if it were up to her, she would have bled out on that street. He was there to make sure she didn't do that.

She calmed down and admitted, "Look, I'm just not ready to talk to him about this yet."

Steve only gave her a glare and deliberately made her watch as he painstakingly pulled out his S.H.I.E.L.D.-provided smartphone and dialed Clint's number. "Just tell him," he said, hinting to her that it was much better to get this out of the way than to drag it on for longer than it needed to. Obviously, he wasn't going to say anything either, if she ultimately chose not to say anything. It was her call. Moving on to the next matter at hand, he helped her remove the bullet, ignoring her protests that she could do it by herself.

She rolled her eyes when Clint rushed into the safe house and asked if she was okay.

"Of _course_ I am, it's just a bullet wound!"

Clint didn't respond, and motioned for Steve to give them some privacy. He looked her over, seeing that the bullet was removed, and began to clean her wound thoroughly. He softly warned her that "it's going to hurt." Like she ever needed warning.

But Natasha knew from the quiet way Clint avoided looking at her that he had somehow discovered her intention to die. As her friend slowly bandaged her injury, she began, "Clint, I-"

He directed her head so that she was looking straight into his eyes. "You don't have to be so nervous," he told her half-jokingly. After a pause, he admitted, "I know what you've been doing, Nat."

As Clint expected, he felt Natasha tense up and erase all emotion from her face. She kept her voice cool as she asked, "What _have_ I been doing?"

He kept his hand close to her head, preventing her from looking away.

"You've been looking for him."

"Who?"

"The Winter Soldier."


	7. The Question

At the mention of the Winter Soldier, Natasha inhaled sharply. This agony was worse than any bullet wound. She had been working to push down all of those emotions, but now they were bubbling to the surface. She felt Clint wrap his arms around her neck in a partial embrace, his forehead touching hers. He gently moved her hair so that it rested behind her ears. He smiled and told her plainly that he was worried for her; he was never sure if, when she left on all those missions in the last six months, she would come back alive or in a body bag.

"You finally figured out if he's still alive."

She blinked back tears and refused to confirm or deny this.

"I already know from talking to Fury exactly what the Winter Soldier means to you, and I know he's still alive."

Clint smiled at her again, reassuring her that he wasn't mad that she didn't tell him. For what it was worth, they were only friends after all. When he professed to Natasha that he loved her, he knew what he was getting himself into emotionally from the start. He took a deep breath, and confessed to Natasha that when he first met her, she was a fireball of emotions and hallucinating and delusional. She kept fighting him any time me tried to get closer.

Natasha teared up, recalling that horrible scene.

But that wasn't the full extent of Clint's confession. He admitted to her that he had heard her in the medical room deliriously repeating something about someone not understanding.

Natasha widened her eyes in surprise. All she had remembered was fighting Clint and his team. She smugly recalled how she had given the other agents hell and sent all of them to the medical wing to recover from their injuries.

Clint continued. He did hope, once, that she would treasure him the way he did with her (she protested that Clint was her closest friend in the world besides Steve, who was like a brother). But he had always known that Natasha's heart was elsewhere and that there was a slim chance that she could really be with him. Despite the knowledge, Clint had chosen to stay with her anyway.

Natasha sighed. For all the time she spent hiding her memory of the Winter Soldier from everyone, Clint Barton could truly see through her.

Clint looked at her lovingly; he wasn't mad. He was just disappointed that Natasha didn't trust him enough to tell him what she'd been doing in the last six months. She didn't have to do this alone. He may love her, but he was willing to set aside his own feelings to help her get what she wanted and let her make her own choices. He comforted her: "It's okay."

With nothing else to say, Natasha apologized for keeping this a secret from him.

Just when she thought that was all that Clint needed to say about this, he mentioned one more thing, which revealed that he knew her as much as the Winter Soldier had. In other words, he knew her far too well.

"You're on a suicide mission, aren't you?"


	8. The Decision

Find the woman?

Or complete the mission?

The Winter Soldier was still struggling with this dilemma as he sharpened his knives and cleaned his weapons. His heart told him to find the woman but his mind recommended he complete the mission. He considered his options. The woman was an unknown, a risk. In his mind, there was no obvious benefit to finding the woman. The mission was clear and direct. It had an objective, a beginning and an end.

As he debated what to do, images kept flashing in his mind.

_Every fairy tale begins with hope. That's always how it starts._

A woman was telling him this. His mother? That can't be it…he couldn't remember ever having one.

_Who are you loyal to?  
The Motherland._

No, that's right. His objective was to kill the traitor.

_We could run away, my love. We could start over where no one knows us._

That was a new one. He'd never had such a wild imagination until recently. What happened? The daily pills he had been given (more like forced to take) had somehow stopped working on him and these images and voices were coming back to him in full force. He suddenly had these things called _feelings_ and they were making him uncomfortable. They were making him weak.

_They know what we're going to do, Natalia. You'll have to go alone._

Who was 'Natalia'? And why did he feel so sad when he thought of that name? The Winter Soldier was not supposed to experience the full range of emotions that were barraging him right now. Shaking his head, the man shut the door on his dreams. Hope was a rare gem hidden inside a holy grail that sinners like him could never find. There was no hope. If there was, he would not have been an assassin right now and he certainly would not be forced to live with sadness. He sighed; he wasn't a prince from some faraway land and that redhead, that _traitor_, was not his princess. The siren's call of _I will always find you_ was designed to incapacitate him. No, the reality was simple: there was only killing and death waiting for the Winter Soldier on the other side.

He aimed his knife straight at the picture of his target pinned on the wall.

This time, he would definitely shoot to kill.


	9. The Directive

"Sir, you can't let her do this."

Clint had beat Natasha to Nick Fury's office first, and burst into the room with the ominous warning for his boss.

"Do what?" Nick Fury asked.

Natasha rushed into the office, panting. "Nothing," she answered, "it's nothing important."

Clint pleaded with her, "Nat, _tell him._" The woman could do whatever she wanted to, for all he cared, but dying like this? That was not it. There had to be another way; there was always another way.

Natasha shrugged. "The Winter Soldier is trying to kill me," she explained to Nick Fury in an even tone, "but I'll be fine."

Director Fury raised an eyebrow. "Why did you wait until now to tell me this?"

"She's being careless," Clint insisted. "She needs someone with her."

"I don't _need protection,_" Natasha retorted, "you of all people should know that! I _did_ hold my own against you _without any weapons._" She was referring to the first time she met Clint Barton. She turned angrily to Nick Fury. "This is _my_ fight, and I'm flying this mission _solo_." She pounded Nick's desk to emphasize the word 'solo.'

Nick Fury considered this. "Don't think I didn't know what you were doing," he warned her. "I let you take on all of those missions because I know how much it means to you to find him" him being the Winter Soldier "but Clint is right, you've been reckless lately. And this time—"

"It's personal," Natasha hissed.

Fury corrected her. "_You're_ the target."

"I don't care."

With or without Nick Fury's permission, she was going to have her final showdown with the Winter Soldier. She'll just wait somewhere out in the open and lure him out. Something like that. She can figure out the rest.

Both Clint and Fury stared at her incredulously.

"I'm improvising," she explained impatiently. What she didn't say was that this was pretty much her last shot at retrieving the Winter Soldier and she had nothing left to lose.

"Still, you're _not_ going on a suicide mission," he ordered her, "and you _will_ have someone with you."

"I'll go with her," Clint offered.  
"No, you're not," she insisted, "I know the Winter Soldier better than anyone and you _can't beat him_." Natasha did not want to drag her friend into this any more than he needed to.

Without skipping a beat, and before Clint could say anything, Fury instructed, "Then take Steve with you." Steve was as emotionally vested in the Winter Soldier as Natasha was, but if there was one thing he had that Natasha didn't right now was that he was more levelheaded and could think clearly without needlessly going off to his death. If there was any hope for Natasha to survive whatever it was she thought she was trying to do, that hope lay with Steve Rogers.

Clint protested, but Fury countered that Clint, like Natasha, was going to let his emotions get in the way. He may be a director, but that didn't mean he wasn't privy to all the office drama and relationships going on around him. There was already one emotional person going on this mission (referring to Natasha) and that was quite enough already.

"Steve will accompany you, Natasha. Do you understand?"

Natasha did not respond.

_I'll get the Winter Soldier back this time. I always find him._


	10. The Confession

In her apartment, Natasha anxiously poured tea into two cups. She gently handed one to Steve. "Here, Steve," she said. "Drink."

"Why are we sitting here, doing absolutely nothing and sipping…" -he took a sip- "green tea? We should be going after Bucky!"

"Tea is good for the spirits."

Steve knew when she was deflecting a question, and persisted.

"Because I'm _telling_ you, he's not the man I knew anymore. And he's no longer your brother." If Natasha had been on her own, she would have gone after the Winter Soldier by herself, but Steve was with her now. That changed things. She didn't care what happened to her, but if Steve had any hope of getting out of this alive, he needed to rest first.

"I don't-"

Steve saw something different in Natasha's expression. There was the same death in her eyes that Clint Barton had described when Natasha was found on the beach, but there was also a certain solemnity to it. Natasha simply said that the Winter Soldier, or Bucky as he knew the man, had forgotten what love and family meant to him. If he killed them, he would not grieve, because he did not remember.

This was the only time that Natasha admitted she was afraid. Not for herself, but for her brother. Believing that this mission would be her last, Natasha decided to tell Steve the full story of her connection to his brother.

She had grown up under the system; fighting for the Motherland had been all she'd known her whole life. The Winter Soldier appeared when she was barely sixteen, and even though there were things about him that didn't make sense, she never questioned it; questions were acts of rebellion. Because she and the Winter Soldier were the top two in their class, they often trained the other recruits and went on difficult assignments together. They were supposed to be monsters: ruthless, efficient, and deadly. They would tally their kills and make light of the situation, because if you ever stopped to think about what you were actually doing, you would never get anything done. But sometimes, when Natasha would hesitate to kill, the Winter Soldier, for her sake, would spare the target's life without the KGB's knowledge (as far as they knew, anyway). He still retained some humanity, even if it was only out of his love for her.

"Why are you saying all this?" Steve was uneasy; Natasha seemed to think that she wasn't going to come out of this alive.

Natasha explained, because the Winter Soldier's emotions had been completely stripped away from him. If the Russians had brainwashed Bucky Barnes and turned him into the Winter Soldier, then they were certainly capable of reforming him into a mindless killing machine who only followed orders.

"I'll save him; I know it. But I'm scared of what he's become. I don't know what he's going to do anymore."

So they were stuck here. The Winter Soldier would come to them, instead. Natasha was sure he had found out where she lived anyway.

"There's just no other way."

After that, everything happened so fast.


	11. The Sneak Attack

*****A/N: This chapter was really hard to write! The only kind of games I've played that involved some kind of fighting were the Diablo series, but I usually played as a rogue. So I did a lot of research for this (even though I'm not sure if it's enough, lol):**

**1. Boxing matches.**  
**2. Fight scenes in Asian action and martial arts movies.**  
**3. Googled how to write fight scenes.**  
**4. I actually tried to calculate hit points...but I gave up on that very early on.**

**You know what's funny? There's an attack inside Natasha's apartment but the neighbors don't do anything. XD This is a convenient plot hole I noticed in an episode of Person of Interest as well, but perhaps it's not so far from the truth due to the bystander effect. Maybe.*****

* * *

The cup of tea fell to the floor, shattering in small white pieces and spilling its contents everywhere.

Natasha and Steve had both anticipated the flash of bright light and heard the bang, but they were too late to prevent the surprise from affecting them. They couldn't hear anything except for the relentless high-pitched ringing. With only seconds to recover, Natasha and Steve tried to gather their thoughts. The Winter Soldier was coming. They were inside Natasha's apartment. They could barely walk. They could barely see.

Someone entered the room and aimed his gun at Natasha. _Boom._

Except that Natasha felt someone standing in front of her and thought she heard the ricochet of bullet against metal. Wait…her hearing was slowly coming back.

She heard "get away!"

But obviously she wouldn't do that. She wasn't the number two assassin for nothing. She still retained her reflexes. If it weren't for the flashbang, Natasha would have been even faster, but this slower speed would have to do. First order of business: she wrestled the gun away from the Winter Soldier. No small feat considering her world had turned into trippy land right now. Steve tried to knock the Winter Soldier to the ground and keep him pinned down, but the other man kicked him away. Steve landed back-first on the ground and blocked the Winter Soldier, who had gotten up and tried to pummel him. Natasha immediately grabbed anything she could and threw it at the Winter Soldier, hoping something, anything, would distract him. Sure enough, the Winter Soldier's attention turned toward her.

"Doing okay?" Natasha asked Steve. She still felt like she wasn't the one saying this, but she was slowly getting her balance back. That was good.

Steve nodded, grinning at her.

The Winter Soldier aimed a knife at Natasha's head, but she dodged. The knife only slid across her cheek, causing it to bleed a little, as it slammed into the wall behind her. He moved swiftly toward her and tried to punch her, but she only ducked and sweep kicked him in the legs knocking him off balance. Natasha watched, unsurprised, as he used one hand to block as fall and immediately got up again. Steve grabbed the Winter Soldier from behind, trying to subdue him without having to shoot him, and the man's attention was redirected to Steve.


	12. The Captain

The woman had moved to a safer area in the room to catch her breath. The man with the shield had grabbed the Winter Soldier from behind, trying to prevent him from getting to the traitor. He managed to get the man with the shield to let go of him, and reached for the gun. He turned around and shot him, only to see his bullet blocked by the shield again. But the shot was just a distraction, and the Winter Soldier pulled out another knife from under his arm, took the shield from the other man, and stabbed him. But as he did so, there was a sick nauseating feeling in his stomach.

_Where are we going?  
The future._

As the other man bit through the pain and kneed him in the stomach, the Winter Soldier couldn't focus on the fight. Why was he seeing this? The timing of it felt like a warning that not everything was what he thought it was. The Winter Soldier took the shield from the man and knocked him across the room with it. He told himself that he was imagining things again. There was only the Motherland.

_Bucky, you didn't have to do that. I could have taken him on by myself._

Who the hell was Bucky?

Before the Winter Soldier could consider this, the blonde wrestled the shield back from him and conked him on the head. Getting hit in the head seemed to trigger more memories, even though he couldn't understand why.

He saw a man who looked just like him wearing clothes he would never have worn. The man happily told the short blonde next to him that he had been assigned to an infantry and wanted to celebrate with his childhood best friend and brother, a short blonde with a lot of gumption. And there were women who were obviously interested in the man.

_Hi Bucky! We missed you a lot, where have you been?_  
_Oh, ladies, if I told you, I'd have to kill you._  
_ Hahahaha!_

The Winter Soldier felt disgusted as he fought, as if he was doing something horribly, horribly wrong.

_I know I don't say this enough. You might be taller now, but you're always going to be my little brother to me._

He never had a brother. But if that was true, why was he thinking of one?

_If you don't have any family, I'll be yours, Winter Soldier.  
_

This mission had drained more energy from the Winter Soldier than he expected it to.


	13. The Transition

_Is he remembering?_

The Winter Soldier seemed to be hesitating. As Natasha slowly kept herself steady on her feet, she watched as Steve landed some punches on the Winter Soldier. She didn't wince; the Winter Soldier was perfectly capable of taking those punches. Yanking the knife stuck on the wall, she threw it back at the Winter Soldier, who naturally caught it with his bionic arm.

And the man's attention was focused on her again.

_I'll fight her, sir._  
_ Winter Soldier, you always want to fight me. Don't you ever get tired?_  
_ Hah! You're just the only person who can keep up._

She closed the distance in milliseconds, and, using the palm of her hand, knocked the man's head back. He stumbled, but took Natasha's arm at the same time and pulled her forward, sending her flying against a bookshelf. She smiled to herself grimly; in their teens, they'd done this exact sequence of moves, but she'd been the one to grab his arm back then. Ignoring the soreness forming in her back and legs, Natasha instinctively shifted into a defensive position, brushing herself off and wiping the dirt from her mouth. The Winter Soldier tried to aim his gun at her and tried to pull the trigger, but she saw that his hands were shaking. Something in his eyes was different, as if the Winter Soldier she'd known was still in there somehow.

"Why can't I kill you?"

He sounded frustrated, as though killing her were the only way for him to stop remembering.

But before she could answer him, Steve tried to swipe the gun away from the Winter Soldier. Except this time, he dodged and twisted Steve's hand in a painful position, slamming him downward.

"Nat, get away from here!" Steve yelled.

The Winter Soldier's eyes turned to her again, and the man she had known had been completely erased from his expression.

Okay, breathe. Breathe. Concentrate. Now that she's got his full attention, she can try to lure him somewhere outside where there'd be more room for her to move around. She quickly looked around. Winter Soldier and Steve are in the center of her apartment. Entrance to the left, windows to the right. There were stairs outside her windows leading to the top of the apartment complex. Go there. She heard another bullet fly past her as she flew, swinging out the window and climbing her way to the top. She knew from the footsteps clanging against the metal stairs that the Winter Soldier was following her and hoped to God he wouldn't shoot her as she fled. At least, not until they were on the top of the building.

"You're too slow," she taunted him as she climbed and swung up the stairs, refusing to look behind her.

When the man responded, Natasha thought she heard a hint of the man she used to know in his voice: "I'm never too slow."

_The only reason you can run faster than me is because you can dance, Natalia.  
Oh please. You just want to chase me all day._

At the top of the building, Natasha kept running and running, until she nearly toppled over the edge. She finally whirled around to look behind her.

Steve was still a good distance away, and the Winter Soldier was aiming his gun at her again. This time, he pulled the trigger.

Natasha held her breath as the final moments of her life flashed before her eyes.


	14. The Dramatic Entrance

Before the bullet had a chance to travel any further, Natasha caught the glint of something else flying as fast as it could toward the bullet. An arrow.

She watched as the arrow hit the bullet precisely, changing its trajectory so that it wouldn't hit here.

What the hell was Clint doing here?

"Clint, _no._" She yelled, even though he wouldn't hear her anyway.

The Winter Soldier looked in the direction the bullet was coming from. There was another twang and another flying arrow. This one was determined to end him, but he denied it the opportunity. He caught it with his left hand. Simple.

Except that it burst into a dark cloud of smoke, and the archer entered the scene with a jump kick, knocking the Winter Soldier back.

"You always make a dramatic entrance like that, Clint?" Steve said, shaking his head but not taking his eyes off the Winter Soldier.

Clint just turned to smile wistfully at Natasha. "You didn't really think I was going to sit this one out, did you?"

"No," Natasha sighed, "I…I guess not."

But Clint didn't respond as the Winter Soldier punched him, forcing him backward. Clint didn't fall, but slid backward a couple of feet. He held his ground. Steve threw his shield at the Winter Soldier, who only caught it and returned it back to him in full force. This created an opportunity for Clint to kick the Winter Soldier's back, lurching him forward, but the Winter Soldier simply used this chance to flip backward so that he ended up behind Clint Barton instead. Natasha realized with disbelief that he moved a little like a dancer. His execution was still clumsy, because the Winter Soldier was never trained in ballet the way she had been. But she had showed him, once, that instead of taking the punches, she could use a combination of gymnastics and a variety of dance techniques by quickly grabbing onto the punching arm or kicking leg and dragging her opponent with her in any direction. The Winter Soldier's body had retained the physical memory.

Clint saw that the Winter Soldier only wanted to kill Natasha, and tried to subdue him by slamming his bow hard onto the Winter Soldier's shoulders, forcing the man to kneel on the ground. He stared into the Winter Soldier's eyes, trying to read him.

"He really doesn't remember you, does he?" Clint called out to Natasha as he wrestled with the Winter Soldier.

_I will always find you._

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"Stay down," Clint insisted, pressing the bow deeper into the Winter Soldier's shoulders.

_Thwack._

Something burned painfully in the Winter Soldier's heart again.

"I don't know who she is," the Winter Soldier protested angrily, "I _don't._" He wasn't sure if he was telling that to the archer, or if he was saying it to himself. Frustrated, he forced the bow away from him, but continued to kneel on the ground. He wasn't sure what he was doing anymore.

"Stop," the woman was saying, "something's wrong."

The Winter Soldier was kneeling on the ground. Nothing was making sense. Killing her should have been easy.

"Bucky" that name again! "remember who you are."

"NO!"

_I'm the Winter Soldier._

_That's all I am._


	15. The Archer

"I'm not Bucky!"

"Then do you know what your name is?" the archer taunted the Winter Soldier.

"Clint, _don't do this._"

"Yeah? Why's that?"

"He's not ready to hear all of that yet." The woman spoke as if she'd known the Winter Soldier all her life. How? He's never met her before. He leapt away as the archer tried to kick him, and blocked a barrage of knife attacks coming his way with his metallic left arm. When the archer tried to attack him again, the woman stepped in between them. Why would she do that? She had to know that the Winter Soldier was there to kill her.

"Stand _aside_," the archer's voice turned dark, "if him remembering is the only way I can save you, then that's what we have to do!"

He used his bow to harshly push her aside. The barrage of attacks resumed and the Winter Soldier found his position continuously shifting backward.

"Why don't you remember your family? Ever thought about that?"

The Winter Soldier ducked. The archer was voicing the questions that had always stuck with the Winter Soldier.

"Russia is my 'family,'" he said bitterly, punching the man.

"Why does Steve keep calling you Bucky? Why does Nat still keep coming after you?"

"I don't know who they are!"

_Kick. Punch._

He watched as the archer became quieter and stopped fighting. "Then remember this about her…"

In between punches, the archer talked about this 'Nat.' She was willing to die for the Winter Soldier. The archer could understand that much; he would protect Nat, forever and always. He mentioned how he would hear 'Nat' crying in the middle of the night and how even though she tried to look happy, it wasn't the same. The archer knew she wasn't completely happy. But the archer loved her all the same, the way she tried to pretend everything was okay even though it wasn't. How her favorite flowers were sunflowers, because they were the only bright light in cold, dark Russia. How she didn't treat death like it was another chore but something to cherish and mourn.

_Natalia?_  
_Can we…can we not kill anyone today? I'm exhausted._  
_Okay. We'll let him go._

_Something in the archer's tone stirred up more emotions inside the Winter Soldier. The archer paused. The Winter Soldier's vision blurred. He almost sobbed before he held that inside him._

_There is no Natalia, Winter Soldier. You're imagining things. There is only us, Russia. K.G.B._

"Whatever you're going to say next, he can't handle it!" The woman protested.

"After all this, she still forgives you for not remembering. For trying to kill her."

The archer's words hit the Winter Soldier like a pile of stone. He felt an unusual amount of rage. People were giving him memories that weren't his, but somehow affected him all the same. The rage coalesced in his hands as he tried to kill the archer for speaking such slander. He only knew Russia. He didn't know 'Nat' or 'Steve.' These people before him were his opponents, his targets to kill.

But the Winter Soldier's emotions were getting in the way of his aim, and he missed. The archer immediately wrestled him for the gun.


	16. The Bottleneck

The gun slid along the floor.

The woman immediately leapt between the archer and the Winter Soldier, and forced the Winter Soldier to look at her with her comforting hands. But why…why did they feel so comforting?

"Look at me," the woman whispered to him in desperation. "Just stop and look at me." He listened to her words and focused on her.

_I promise you, Natalia, no matter what happens, I will always protect you._

Are these memories he is recalling the archer's? He thinks on this for a minute as he throws his opponents to the ground. How is that even possible? But the archer referred to the woman as 'Nat.' Then the memory of Natalia must be...his own?

"You endured so much," the woman was telling him softly. He started seeing things again, an image of being tortured right after pushing someone off. Of trying to remember a story, only for his superiors to have it yanked from him. There was only one sentence that stuck with him: a promise that someone would come back for him.

_Do you like dancing, Natalia?_

He suddenly finds himself holding the woman by her wrists, so that he doesn't remember anything except what he knows. But she broke free from his grip, twirled around while grabbing his hands, and slammed him forward onto the ground.

_"You're a good fighter," the boy said to the girl, concealing a smile._  
_"You're stating the obvious," the girl promptly responded, kicking him in the groin._

With one hand he blocked his fall, and the words suddenly broke out of him.

"I don't love you." Was he saying this simply to protect her? He wasn't sure what was real anymore, and the words nearly broke him, even though he could not explain why.

_I love you, Natalia._

"If you don't, then why do you keep finding me?" the woman retorted, punching him in the stomach.

_I was looking for you, Natalia. I wanted to see if you were okay. Don't cry._

What? The real reason that this women kept showing up in his life was because he had always been looking for her. He just didn't remember. It dawned on him why she showed up in every mission he had taken on lately. The Russians were manipulating him, certainly, but he set himself up as bait because somehow, he had faith that she would enter the trap and come out of it alive. He remembered feeling relieved to find Natalia in the United States.

And then when he was brainwashed again, he would always find missions to do in the United States. Steal the Tessaract from an agency in the United States. He remembered another failed mission, involving a defector who had tried to escape to the United States. Natalia…this person whose name he couldn't feel was living in the United States, and she was…she was the woman standing in front of him? The memories buried inside him fought to break out from the confines of his mind. And then there came new memories, memories involving the man with the shield. Why? How could he know them both?

_Are you okay, Steve?_

"Bucky," he heard the man with the shield tell him, "please."

_Come on, Steve, you should come! I'll show you how to have a good time with women._

The Winter Soldier's mind could not handle all of this information, and could only latch onto one sentence that was keeping him sane:

"Who the hell is Bucky?"


	17. The Chaos

The Winter Soldier lashed out at the three with his knives.

"Everyone shut up!" The woman screamed.

The other men listened to her, but kept in a defensive position. The Winter Soldier couldn't remember if he was Bucky or James or someone else and all he could see...

_Falling falling falling dying killing blood blood blood blood blood blood blood_

No. Nononononono. He can't be Bucky Barnes and the Winter Soldier all at the same time. How can he reconcile all of them to make one whole person? Why does he only know what he knows right now, that he is a terrible Beast, and yet have all of these complete strangers remind him that he was someone else before all of this? He is going insane. No, everyone else is going insane. He's not crazy. He's not crazy. He was born Russia...to...to... and this is is whole life, and his name is...is _Bucky..._

_Oh my god...I'm a murderer. I'm a killer._

"Winter Soldier," the woman ordered him again in Russian, "look at me. Look at me!" She grabbed his face again and pulled him closer to her, close enough to kiss. His heart beat rapidly. In her eyes he sees their past, the treasure he can't cherish anymore, because he never remembered he was there in the first place. He knows that there are emotions connected to the past and he wants to feel them but he can't, he really can't. He would kill the people responsible for this, but who are they?

_My Natalia. _  
_ My sweet Natalia. _

Those tears streaming down his face and the sobbing breaking through his throat aren't his own. They aren't his own. He can't face the reality that he left a dream behind, why did he leave? He sees her crying, too and sees her wipe the tears away from his face.

_I am yours, and you are mine._

"Bucky," the man with the shield begged him, "please."

_I'm a killer I'm a killer I'm a killer they all died because of me because of me. I did this I did this I did this._

"Quiet!" the woman screamed again. To the Winter Soldier she repeated, this time in Russian, "Please stay with me. Look at me."

_Natalia, look at me. You're going to be okay._

The Winter Soldier can't focus on any single thought. He's filled with anxiety and contradictions and crazy thoughts. They keep telling him he was someone named "Bucky," that he knew the redhead in front of him. He can't have people telling him who he is, making him question what he knows. There's no way he has memory loss...why are people telling him a story he never wrote? Then again, he never remembered growing up, either. All he can recall is a redheaded girl, but why can he have this memory of her and not the memory of how she made him feel? He remembers a blonde, but he doesn't want to connect the dots. He didn't go from a hero to _this_, he didn't!

"I don't want to know who I am!"

He reached for the gun on the ground and shot in the direction of the man calling him "Bucky."


	18. The Family

Except something happened, and the flash of red stood in the way of the bullet that was meant for the man with the shield, and she fell backward and backward.

"Nat!" The archer and the man with the shield called out, moving toward her.

But the Winter Soldier beat them to her first and cradled the woman in his arms, holding her closer to him. The archer was about to aim his arrow at him and shoot straight for the head at close-range, but the man with the shield saw something different and motioned for him to stop. The archer clenched his fists tightly.

The Winter Soldier panicked. Was she dead now? Is it really too late for him, then? He really is a killer, isn't he? He'd murdered the princess from his dreams. He really is the Beast. He was always looking for her, but now he did something that tore into him and threatened to break him. It was worse than being inaccurate and failing at missions. She was the name he couldn't remember and now he would never really remember her. A wave of sadness overwhelmed him, until he heard her cough and moan in pain.

She was still alive?

_The young boy saved the girl from drowning in the water. "Natalia, come on, breathe! Don't die on me!" When she finally coughed up water, he hugged her tightly._

The woman looked at him. "Well, you sort of did what you set out to do."

He ignored this and, for some reason, hugged her even tighter. For some reason, she hugged him back. He whispered in soft Russian, "But why would you do something like this?"

"I would do anything for you," she coughed, "I would rather die than see you kill your brother. Please...we are your family." By "we," she was referring to herself and the man with the shield.

"Come back home to us."

Although the Winter Soldier, the one that had been a ruthless killing machine, was not consciously aware of this, the woman's words awoke the shadows from his past who had slumbered for years underneath buried memories and false messages. The new persona of the Winter Soldier, James Buchanan Barnes, the one that would later reconcile the pieces of his broken mind, emerged and made the conscious decision to defect from Soviet Russia, the place that represented a lifetime of servitude. He would follow his princess to the ends of the earth, even if it meant his death, because he had finally found the answer he had been looking for all along.

This woman was his Princess Charming.

* * *

*****A/N: OK, yeah, totally obsessed with the Snow/Charming plotline in OUAT. They just believe in each other so much no matter what the other person does and in one episode Charming is even willing to die for Snow so she won't turn evil...*****


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